A thing with a gun riding a thing.

Haven's posted any art in a while, so here's one...

SLG Creator Studio

Want me to teach you mad skillz live and in person?! Of course you do. Come to San Jose on May 16th. Here's what's up:

Event Details

SLG Publishing continues it's succesful and informative Creator's Studio series with another day-long event on May 16th. Creator's Studio IV will feature panels on comics and their creation and will end with a live-drawing demonstration by the artist of the Eisner Award nominated humor series Chumble Spuzz Ethan Nicolle.

Our tentative panels for the this month's event include:

Preparing a Proposal - Taught from the SLG Publishing perspective, Dan Vado will go over what should and should not go into your written project proposal to a comics company. Also covered will be what to put into your portfolio and how to handle yourself when you are planning to show your work to editors at a convention.

Good Design/Bad Design - SLG Art Director Scott Saavedra goes over

good and bad design choices and how they apply to comics and graphic novels.

In addition to being SLG's Art Director, Scott is the creator of Comic Book Heaven, a book

series that looked at comics from the Golden and Silver Age with an eye towards examining the goofier aspects of those books.

Conjuring a page - Artists in semi-residence Ethan Nicolle sits down at his drawing tabld and demonstrates his drawing and storytelling techniques. This is an interactive demonstration, questions are encouraged. Ethan will show how he breaks down a page and take a page of script and show and explain his thought process for creating a finished piece.

Ethan is the Eisner Award nominated creator of Chumble Spuzz and is one of the funniest and most inventive creators to hit SLG Publishing in a long time.

The Creator's Studio seminar is not a how-to-draw class, a certain amount of proficeincy on the part of attendees is assumed. While some attention will be paid to the basics of drawing, for the most part this session will be devoted to storytelling and design. Recommended age for this seminar is 16 or older.

Buy a ticket for this event here.

uStream draw-cast 2

Alright! I did another uStream show tonight and it was once again really fun. If you ever want to catch one, follow me on twitter or watch for an update on myspace or facebook. Here is what we came up with tonight...

This is a zombie armadillo eating an ice cream cone. The ice cream cone is very sad. I imagine the armadillo is pretty happy, though he can't show much emotion.

This is Tigerpus. He is half tiger, half platypus. I like him.

This is Rebracta. That is the name that was made up for this woman... man... troll thing. This character was created as people shouted out various features, like emo hair, big lips, fishnets, etc. The results were


The last image requested ended up being me in a bunny suit in a space suit. So that's what you have here.

Thanks again to everyone who participated and watched!

First U-Stream Draw-cast

So, mimicking my friend Val, I decided to do a Ustream live video feed of me drawing in Manga Studio. As I drew, I had people in the chat make suggestions and I went off of those ideas. So for the first one, I asked for two animals and someone said girrafe and flamingo, so we ended up with a Girmingo:

Next, I had everyone watching start blurting out various features of a yet-to-exist character. Someone said batwings, then hook-hand, then bifocals, then squinty eyes, and we just kept going from there until we had this cuddly little guy who we named Hubert Bibbo:

For my final drawing, someone suggested a Wolf Turtle, and someone else asked for a unicorn, so I drew a Were-Turtle devouring a Unicorn:


And that was that. My first u-stream live draw-cast. It was fun. If you ever want to be a part of one, just try to keep track of me on twitter, or myspace. I will post when I am on. I may schedule something sometime, too, if there is interest. Thanks again to everyone who watched, chatted, and made it fun.

Ethan

I have a crappy website

I needed space online to FTP myself stuff, so I bought my name dot com. I figured I would use my very minimal HTML skillz to put up a basic page that links to my various crap already on line in other places. Putting this up reminded me that I actually have an art blog I never update, so I am going to throw some art up here with no explanation whatsoever. Enjoy!

Johnen Vasquez Reviews Chumble Spuzz

What you are about to read is one of the highest compliments I have ever been paid, and convenietnly it is typed up and posted in a blog, so I don't have to try to recollect it for you from a brief meeting at a comic convention. Johnen Vasquez, creator of some of my favorite works, includng Squee and Invader Zim, finished reading both Chumble Spuzz books, and wrote this long review, which not only had me blushing, but laughing out loud.


The review.

Thanks, Johnen, for this. You made my day. Or week. Maybe even month.

Ethan

Interview and APE CON

I’m an APE Special Guest The APE (Alternative Press Expo) Convention will be in November, and cuddly little ol' me will be SLG's special guest this year. I feel very honored. I have never been to APE, but have always wanted to go, because I am an alternative comics-o-phile. Dan Vado, the founder of SLG is also the founder of APE, and it is one of the biggest celebrations of indy comics in the US, if not the world. So being one of the six special guests is quite a compliment.

Apparently I will get a panel. I am thinking about bringing some kind of prize to the few people who actually come to it. It will be my first panel ever, so I have to celebrate even if no one comes. Whatever happens, I think it will be fun. APE! Here's my descrption on the APE site:

Ethan Nicolle

Cartoonist Ethan Nicolle’s work features those lovable reprobates Gunther a nd Klem, whose stories are collected in Chumble Spuzz volumes one (“Kill the Devil”), and two (“Pigeon Man” and “Death Sings the Blues”). Nicolle lives in Portland, Oregon in an attic and tells us he’s one of those “little head, big body” type of guys.

Courtesy SLG Publishing





Besides all that jazz, here's an interview I did with JK Parkin at Newsarama.